Here are six of The Athletic's stories on Roy Halladay, whose life will be celebrated at a memorial service open to the public Tuesday afternoon at Spectrum Field in Clearwater, Fla. We've made all the stories “unlocked” (free to non-subscribers). For a discounted subscription offer including a seven-day free trial, click or tap here.

Thanks to all who shared their memories of Halladay last night. Among them: Utley, Werth, Rollins, Howard, Amaro. https://t.co/E4w1NDP8aB

Former teammates remember Roy Halladay as a great player and an even better personBy Ken Rosenthal

It was almost as if Roy Halladay was two people—two of the best people you could ever meet. On the mound, Halladay was, in the words of Ruben Amaro Jr., his former general manager with the Philadelphia Phillies, “the most ferocious competitor you can ever imagine.” Off the mound, Amaro said, Halladay was, “the kindest, most unassuming, gentle person.” Or in the words of former Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard, “For as great of a baseball player as he was, he was an even better human being.”

Halladay, who died at 40 on Tuesday when his plane crashed into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida, was a Hall of Fame-caliber pitcher, unparalleled worker, and model teammate. Those who knew him best also described him as a devoted husband to his wife, Brandy, and father to his sons, Ryan and Braden. In short, he was everything you would want a person and a baseball player to be. Read the full story.

On Roy Halladay, the leader of the Five Aces and the brightest light in a star-filled Phillies era. https://t.co/6bSG89r4g2

Roy Halladay, the quiet workaholic, left a loud and lasting mark in his relatively short time with the PhilliesBy Kevin Cooney

They were being advertised as baseball’s hottest rock band. A super rotation that had been made whole with the signing of Cliff Lee during the previous winter arrived in Clearwater, Fla., in 2011 with more hype than any unit in Phillies history.

But Roy Halladay — the quiet workaholic whose personality didn’t exactly mesh with that traveling circus' demands — was bound and determined to prove a point. And so, when the request came on the first day of spring training for a Sports Illustrated cover shot of himself, Lee, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt, Halladay was going to hold out until the fifth rotation member — Joe Blanton — was included with everyone else.

“Everybody labeled us as 'The Four Aces,'” Cole Hamels said on Tuesday in Philadelphia. “Roy came in and said, 'No, it’s Five Aces. We have five guys in this rotation and they’re all aces.' We believed it. We saw that from Roy and we believed it.” Read the full story.

Loving Roy Halladay was easy By Liz Roscher

Roy Halladay went to the zoo.

There are a lot of ways I could have started this article. Roy Halladay had an incredible career that contained both consistency and utter brilliance, but it says a lot about how he’s beloved in Philadelphia that one of his best moments was going to the zoo.

And Roy Halladay, who died in a plane crash last Tuesday at age 40, had a lot of great moments in a short time in Philadelphia. Those moments made him a legend, but there were so many other things he did that made him beloved. Read the full story.

I have no clubhouse anecdotes about Roy Halladay. I never spoke to him, but I didn't have to. He gave me something on October 6, 2010 that I will forever cherish.

One evening in October: A father, a son, a sister, and a no-hitterBy Ben Harris

Oh, that fateful Brandon Phillips dribbler up the first-base line, the final out that cemented history. Phillips, not three steps out of the box, discarded his bat in the direct path of the ball that barely made its way onto the infield grass, forcing Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz to adjust course and drop to his knees. Just two years before, a Phillies pitcher dropped to his knees not far from where Ruiz knelt. “Chooch” bare-handed the baseball and fired to first, and met his pitcher with a bear hug on the same exact spot where Brad Lidge fell to the ground, arms raised to the heavens, after clinching the Phillies’ first World Series title since 1980. What more fitting a final out than a weakly hit topper induced on a perfect curveball impeded by one final obstacle, a well-placed bat, navigated beautifully by Halladay’s personal commander-in-chief, the man whom he constantly showered with praise. Together, he and Ruiz achieved what just one other battery had in the prior 1,319 postseason baseball games. Halladay was all about “together.”

Forget the zero hits allowed — no pitcher in baseball in 2017 threw a complete-game shutout with as few pitches, as many strikeouts and as few walks as Halladay did in that playoff debut. 2017 was the first season no such games had been pitched since 1987, 10 years after Halladay was born, 11 more before he’d throw his first big league game. He was an anachronistic relic of a what now may be a bygone era, a reminder of what baseball once was. His death serves as a stark reminder that we may never see the type of pitcher he was again. Read the full story.

A personal farewell to Roy Halladay, a Blue Jays' legend whose retirement seemed to bring as much joy as his glorious careerBy John Lott

It doesn't seem real.

As I write this, that knot in my stomach just won't go away. I know that scores of former teammates, hundreds of industry folks and millions of fans share that forlorn feeling today.

So a lot of this dispatch is personal. I covered most of Halladay's big-league career. I watched him zoom to the top in 1998, then sink and then swim again. I wrote about his Groundhog Day lament in 2008 – he was great but the Jays refused to rise to meet his hopes – and I covered his first post-season game in Philadelphia, which happened to be a no-hitter.

And after his body finally failed him as a Phillie in 2013, I took pleasure in his Twitter feed, which chronicled the happy turning of a page.

He fished with old friends. He coached his kids. He flew his plane. He looked relaxed and happy, not at all the way he looked in the clubhouse when his intensity filled up the room and intimidated even his teammates.

Roy Halladay epitomized the hope of Blue Jays fans in the first decade of this century. Then he left because he burned to pitch for a winner, and became beloved in Philadelphia too. Read the full story.

Tigers pitcher Daniel Norris got a call in July that he will never forget. It was from Roy Halladay. https://t.co/S7SSSckzS1

The day Halladay was set to reach out, the Tigers were in Cleveland. Norris didn’t want to miss the call so he got up early and went to breakfast. When the two connected, they ended up talking for two hours. Two hours.

They talked baseball, of course. Halladay told Norris he could tell he was pitching through an injury, but that he had seen previous starts in 2016. He told him his stuff was incredible, that there was no reason he wouldn’t have success. He took him through his own story, a path that included, at one point, a stop in Single A. He gave him tips on mental preparation.

If anything, Norris’ confounding results can be traced to caring too much — an earnest, willful and intense desire to succeed — and Halladay empathized with this. He too had struggles with that sort of aggressive tenacity. But then he learned to channel it in a positive way. He encouraged Norris to do the same.

It’s OK to be who you are. You just need to use it more effectively.

There’s one other kernel of advice that stands out, though. One that Norris has never, and will never forget. One that was abundantly relevant to his professional crossroads at the time.

Every game you go out there, every fifth day, make sure every box is checked. That’s the main thing. And if it’s not, and you don’t get the results, you have no one else to blame. Read the full story.